#50 - Chuck Marohn, StrongTowns

About this episode

Chuck Marohn discusses the financial insolvency of cities and advocates for a new approach to urban planning through StrongTowns.

Chuck Marohn is a civil engineer, urban planner, and the founder of StrongTowns: an organization that has been shaking up the world of planning, development, and local governance with one powerful idea: that many of our cities, especially in North America, are financially insolvent by design. Through his books, lectures, and relentless advocacy, he’s exposed the hidden fragility of car-centric growth and championed a new, bottom-up approach to building places that are financially strong, resilient, and deeply human. Visit the StrongTowns website here: https://www.strongtowns.org Follow them on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@strongtowns Follow StrongTowns on X: https://x.com/StrongTowns Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/strong_towns/ ======== For more information on The Aesthetic City, find our website on https://theaestheticcity.com/ Love what we do? Become a patron! With your help we can grow this platform even further, make more content and hopefully achieve real, lasting impact for more beautiful cities worldwide. Visit our Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/the_aesthetic_city?fan_landing=true We are making an online course about urban planning! Join the waitlist…

People in this episode

Host: Ruben Hanssen

Guest: Chuck Marohn

Topics covered

• urban planning
• local governance
• financial sustainability
• car-centric growth
• community resilience

Keywords

• urban planning
• StrongTowns
• financial sustainability
• community resilience
• car-centric growth

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: StrongTowns, YouTube, Instagram, Patreon, Substack

More episodes of The Aesthetic City

• #60 - Branko Mitrovic: The Classical Architecture Education Renaissance in Trondheim · May 29, 2026 · 54 min
• #59 - Michael Diamant, part III: Why Tradition Is Progressive · February 18, 2026 · 1h 10m
• #58 - Timothy Smith, Smith & Taylor Architects - The Revival of Classical Architecture Education in Britain · February 6, 2026 · 35 min
• #57 - Will McCollum, Citymakers Collective: Creating Urbanism Education Alternatives in the USA · January 30, 2026 · 1h 13m
• #56 - Ann Sussman: Why It's Time for Human-Centric & 'Biological' Architecture & Urban Design · December 30, 2025 · 1h 1m
• #55 - Alexandros Lavdas: Why Our Brains (& Bodies) Need Beautiful Cities · December 4, 2025 · 50 min